Details

Date Published

Feb. 17, 2017

Date Built

Jan. 13, 2017

CPU Clock Rate

3.9GHz

CPU Temperature While Idle

29.0° C

Description

Now before the whole PC master race get in a up roar about this not having a GPU or using the G4560 or a pentium this was built before it was available the customer didn't want to wait as it was needed for work...and once again this was a build for a simple office desktop solution NOT needed for playing video games. Some of these parts came with rebates, and made this a very affordable build for the customer. I do not keep the rebates for myself as I have my customer order everything with their funds. For more experienced builders I would like input on if that is a common practice or what you do. All information and help is appreciated. Now that i covered that on to the good stuff.

The Case: I picked out the corsair 270R ATX mid tower. There was a $20 rebate at the time I purchased it and it was too great a deal to pass up. It is a very beautiful and simple computer case. It was also very easy to work in, and wouldn't mind working in it again. Now this thing is very roomy and for those that want to know it would have no problem fitting in a water cooling solution and a radiator. It also has a PSU shroud to hide the PSU and the cables. It also came with a free Corsair Red LED fan. Even though it doesnt have a window (not my choice) it does give a soft glow inside the case along with the red ram. This case only came with the rear exhaust fan so them adding in that extra one was nice and saved the from having to purchase another case fan.

MOBO: Now originally I had planned to have the full size ATX for this mid tower, but when I got to Micro Center it was sold out and I went ahead and got this one. Now at Micro Center I bundled this with the CPU and got an extra $20 off. I must say this is a beautiful mobo. it is white and black with silver accents. Has M.2 and enough sata3 inputs for most peoples needs.

Storage: This one was pretty simple as it also had a $10 rebate. I have a samsung EVO 850 in my personal rig as my boot up drive and I must say I am pretty impressed with this ADATA I installed. Has 3 year warranty and if you register it they give you an extra year. It was I'd say almost as quick as my EVO and at current prices about $30 cheaper... But then again Fresh builds always seem quicker and snappy it's the long run that counts. Anyway I know everyone is looking at the memory like it's not going to last...Fear not my fellow nerds. The customer uses a 2 TB external hard drive for most of the files he needs. Once again he is not downloading games or any huge programs.

RAM: For some reason PC partpicker didn't have the ram on their list but we purchased TEAM GROUP DELTA 8 gb DDR4-2400 RED LED kit. I personally have never used TEAM GROUP before, but with RAM going back up in prices and trying to keep the price low on this build seemed like a good choice as it was cheaper than what was available at the time, and has a lifetime warranty so what the hay gave it a shot. When installed it has a breathing affect to it which kinda gets mesmerizing lol.

PSU: I usually use EVGA for power supplies and this is only the 2nd time I used a Corsair. Grabbed it because it was on sale + it had a $15 rebate as well. At the time there where no other sales to get one under $35 except for a logisys...which personally i haven't had issues but they don't seem to be liked so I stuck with a trusted brand

CPU: The customer wanted to stick with Intel and also wanted to be up to date as he was coming off of an ancient Dell XPS 410 that was 11 years old. He thought it'd be nice to go ahead and just get current gen everything so we did. It being sort of budget build if he had the time I would have used one of the new Pentiums as they are on par with the skylake i3s, but alas time was of the essence and the next best thing would be the kaby lake i3.

I must say I had a fun time with this build. It was my first Kaby Lake build and it turned out pretty good. I did however have some weird issue with the cpu fan not seating properly on the cpu and had temps going crazy high. Talking about in the 70s+ high. So I uninstalled the fan and took a look at it, and lo and behold one of the pins would not pop down to hold the heat sink to the CPU... Had to tinker with it for a bit but finally got it to sit it's stubborn self properly. I also ended up using Artic Silver 5 paste since well i took the dang thing off might as well right? Once I got it on I was at idle around 27-29 degrees and it never got even close to 70s on load. As far as the new chips I would say if you're on a budget grab those hyper threaded Pentiums they are a steal, but if you are looking for any huge difference from skylake and are on the fence go ahead and just stick with skylake or wait till RYZEN.

Another thing that I didn't like is how small the dang MOBO looks in the case, but it is what it is that's what happens when you put mATX in a big case. LOL I should have just jumped on another ATX but those where over priced, and couldn't pass up the extra monies off pairing the mobo and i3. Anyways thank you for your time, and any input or questions that may arise.

P.S Once again this is not a gaming PC and never was intended to be one, butttt i was able to check and it can play League of Legends =). Also there is a video by UFdisciple that shows him using just the integrated gfx with the kaby lake if you want more info on that.

Prices on the part list reflect the prices paid at the time including any MiR or combo discounts.

Part Reviews

CPU

Well it's everything most people expect good cpu, but also disappointing if you are expecting a big difference from the skylake. But that's been the norm for intel small updates for the past few years, but on the flip side you do know what you're getting when you buy one.

Comments
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After seeing your explanation, I have to say that this is not a bad workstation computer.

I'm not sure why people are giving you trouble for using an i3-7100 since you explained that this was built before the G4560.

Good choices my friend, and good job on the workstation build.

As a side note, I am not too sure what the differences are between all of the new SSD's because if you look at the read/write, and the lifespan of all of the available SSD's the Samsung 850 EVO is way overpriced.

Thank you for your comment! I knew people would give me crap about not using the pentium but that's why i put it in there like two times that at the time it wasn't available and it was a time sensitive build, but it is what it is. I expected a few really to not understand. Thank you on the props.
Really the difference comes down to preference, name brand and if the SSD is MLC , TLC, or SLC. Those 3 differences help to determine how the ssd stores it's information per cell. Basically the SSD's with SLC or single level cells, store only one bit of data per cell and are supposedly faster and more reliable than the other 2 options, but in my experience they all seem to last pretty well and do what needs to be done. No matter what SSD is chosen they all are gonna be a heck of a lot faster than any HDD. For personal preference I go with whatever is cheapest at the time or if it looks good in the case, but for builds for customers I let them decide if they want the cheapest or what their ultimate goal is. I also agree with you on how much Samsung is over priced, but I'll scoop em up on a nice sale though.

I have not been able to afford a new computer since 2011, and I am still using a 90 GB Corsair Force Series GT SSD (exact model information from Newegg: Corsair Force Series GT 2.5" 90GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CSSD-F90GBGT-BK), and it has no issues running Windows 10 (I did have to do some extreme clean up of the hard drive to get the required 25 GB for upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10...#NIGHTMARE!!!).

Thank you...

I agree. If I had been commissioned to build it right now all over again A pentium would be used because of its' performance compared to the i3, but once again at the time this build was commissioned everyone was still waiting for Intel to release those chips to North America. Anyway Thanks for you interest and comment it is appreciated

Yes, as stated a few times this was in no way supposed to be a gaming build so it does use the intel HD gfx, But I must say the Intel HD gfx have indeed come a long way from back in the day, and are currently able to play ok frames on some games at low-mid settings depending on what games. Just don't go expecting to max out 60+fps with it lol. Thank you for the comment and interest.